The Savage Is Loose (1974) Review

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(More customer reviews)The odd subject of this screenplay could only have been made into a movie during the sex-ploitation craziness of the early '70's. Produced, directed, and eventually distributed by Scott (ostensibly because not even the major studios would touch it) the movie is about a man, who, with his young wife (real wife, Trish Van Devere) and their 4-year old son, David (played by both Lee Montgomery and John Carson) get marooned on a desert island in 1907, the only survivors from a ship that crashes onto the rocky shore during a terrible storm at sea. Five years later, it's 1912, and the toddler is now a happy-go-lucky 9-year having the time of his life in what starts out like a realistic version of "Swiss Family Robinson". However, once the lad starts going though puberty over the next few years, we are lead to realize (as the voyeurs that we are) there is no outlet for his growing desire for the opposite sex, except for the only woman of the island, namely, his mother.
Eight more years pass, and now David is a very healthy, vibrant 17-year old man. His father taught him well - to be self sufficient in a world where the strong survive and the weak must die. Driven by lust after his mother, he creates a sort of "sex dummy" out of coconut shells, canvas bags from the ship, and other materials around the island. His mother eventually stumbles upon it in the jungle and is horrified by what her son has become. Soon she learns that he plans to kill off his own father so that he - being the stronger of the two males on the island - will reap the spoils, that is, his mother.
The movies drifts off at this point like the raft Mom and Dad built to escape their son, which David sets loose in order to keep them from fleeing the island. While the father is away hunting down his son for a confrontation, David sneaks into his mother's hut and holding up the Bible, demands to know where Cain's wife came from if his mother, Eve, was the only woman on the planet. He tears the crucifix from around her throat and leaves her in shock while he turns to hunt down his own father.
David's mother gets the hint, so she burns down the treehouse and the huts, lets loose the animals, and waits at the edge of a cliff with a knife behind her back to kill her son when he finds her. Will she take her own life as well now that she's destroyed her home, her only protection from the jungle? Meanwhile, David has captured his father and has him hog-tied in the jungle where the fire from the huts is heading. Unfortunately, the incestuous theme is never developed, and eventually, David finds his mother, but before he rapes her, he is suddenly overwhelmed by guilt and confusion. He drops to his knees in tears, his mother drops the knife, embraces her crying son, and just as her husband (having escaped the fire with 3rd degree burns all over his body) is about to plunge a spear into his son's back, she holds up her hand in protest. He backs off, she kisses her son on the lips, and he kisses her back - passionately. The camera pulls away and focuses on the derelict on the beach, and we are frustratingly left to ponder what happens, assuming the three eventually accept the unusual relationship of their strangely particular situation.
The movie is gorgeously photographed and Miss Van Devere is stunningly beautiful throughout the film, but it is a very long, drawn out, and quite frankly, a boring production. I ended up looking for the rescue ships myself - hoping for some life to be kicked into this Oedipal study of a civilized family ending up marooned on a desert island, and slowly becoming savage in their characters.
Hence, "The Savage is Loose" works neither as an adventure film, nor as an exploration into psychological melodrama. It's been out of print for a very long time, and there is a reason for this. However, for movie philes or George C. Scott fans (if there is such a group) you may be able to find grainy used videos selling on Ebay or Amazon, and you may still be able to download it from the public domain for free, as I did - before deleting it.


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